It’s safe to say that Iron Man is one of the most popular super heroes in the world. Just a few years ago, he was nothing more than a B-list hero that appeared in comic books and Saturday morning cartoons. Now, he’s the focus of two films that together have grossed over a billion dollars and another film you may have heard of called The Avengers that is the-third biggest movie of all time. Iron Man shows no signs of stopping as a film franchise and with the release of the latest entry in the franchise, we decided to take a look back at the other movies and point out some of the facts that you might not have known.

#1 WHO TRIED TO MAKE IRON MAN BEFORE?

The first Iron Man film in 2007 wasn’t the first attempt to bring the character to the big screen. Universal Studios bought the rights to the character in 1990 and wanted to make a low-budget action film out of it. They even hired Re-Animator director Stuart Gordon to helm the project. Six years later the rights would be bought by 20th Century Fox and two big name actors expressed interest in putting on the armor, Nicolas Cage and Tom Cruise. Years after they lost interest in the part, Fox would go after Pulp Fiction director Quentin Tarantino to write and direct the film (it went nowhere).

The rights to Iron Man then shifted to their third home in the year 2000. Fox sold the rights to New Line Cinema because they already had Daredevil, X-Men, and Fantastic Four in development. New Line set up the film with Shrek screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio and The Iron Giant writer Tim McCanlies. They would later approach a man named Joss Whedon to direct the film. A few years later when the project had been stalled for some time, New Line brought on The Notebook‘s Nick Cassavetes to direct the film but once again that went nowhere. In 2005 they sold the rights back to Marvel where they announced Iron Man would be their first self-financed film.